As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the American Civil War, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history.

From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father, a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

In Brooks’ telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body, and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.

Spanning the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott's optimistic children's tale and portrays the moral complexity of war, a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism, and by the temptations of a powerful forbidden attraction.  (from GeraldineBrooks.com)

Growing Up by Russell Baker

Russell Baker is the 1979 Pulitzer Prize winner for Distinguished Commentary and a columnist for The New York Times.  [His home is also located near LPC.]  This book traces his youth in the mountains of rural Virginia.

When Baker was only five, his father died. His mother, strong-willed and matriarchal, never looked back. After all, she had three children to raise.

Abram's Daughters introduces readers to an Old Order family, a close-knit community and a devout people whose way of life and faith in God is as timeless as their signature horse and buggy.

Set against the backdrop of post-World War II, this compelling saga spans three generations of a Lancaster County Amish family. Abram Ebersol and his devoted wife are raising four courting-age daughters on a firm foundation of Plain tradition, and they expect their girls to carry on that heritage by joining the church and making a covenant with God.

But the "running-around" years known as rumschpringe are often a time of sowing wild oats. Each of Abram's daughters, choosing her own path, must come to terms with the Old Ways of thinking and living. And sometimes that path has detours and forks in the road with unknown destinations…. (from BeverlyLewis.com)

1.                  The Covenant

2.                  The Betrayal

3.                  The Sacrifice

4.                  The Prodigal

5.                  The Revelation